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Resources updated between Monday, July 28, 2014 and Sunday, August 03, 2014

August 2, 2014

Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped in April, 2014

Nigerian forces have arrested two Boko Haram suspects who were traveling with a 10-year-old girl with explosives strapped to her, the government said on Wednesday.

Government spokesman Mike Omeri said the suspects had been intercepted in a Honda CRV car traveling along a road in the north's Katsina state.

"Ten-year old Hadiza was discovered to have been strapped with an explosive belt and, immediately, Iliya and Zainab made attempt to escape with the car, but were later blocked by other concerned Nigerians and subsequently arrested," he said.

"The regime of Syrian President Bashar al Assad is holding 150,000 civilians in custody, all of whom are at risk of being tortured or killed by the state, the Syrian defector known as 'Caesar' told Congress on Thursday. According to a senior State Department official, his department initially asked to keep this hearing-in which Caesar displayed new photos from his trove of 55,000 images showing the torture, starvation, and death of over 11,000 civilians-closed to the public, out of concerns for the safety of the defector and his family. Caesar smuggled the pictures out of Syria when he fled last year in fear for his life. Caesar's trip had been in the works for months...The packed committee room sat in silent horror as new examples of Assad's atrocities were splashed on the large television screens on the wall and displayed on large posterboards littered throughout the hearing room. Caesar spoke softly to his translator, Mouaz Moustafa, the executive director of the Syrian American Task Force, a Washington-based organization that works with both the Syrian opposition and the U.S. State Department. 'I am not a politician and I don't like politics,' Caesar said through his translator. 'I have come to you honorable Congress to give you a message from the people of Syria... What is going on in Syria is a genocidal massacre that is being led by the worst of all the terrorists, Bashar al Assad.' The international community must do something now or the 150,000 civilians still held in regime custody could meet the same bleak fate, Caesar said.

"During an Eid al Fetr address to a gathering of senior Iranian officials and foreign diplomats of Islamic countries, President Hassan Rouhani commented on the war in Gaza saying, 'Today, this festering Zionist tumor has opened once again & has turned the land of olives into destruction and blood and littered the land with the body parts of Palestinian children.'"

On July 17, 2014 UNRWA announced that "Yesterday, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered approximately 20 rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip."

A spokesperson for UNRWA said afterward the organization gave the rockets to "local authorities" - in other words, Hamas.

On July 22, 2014 UNRWA admitted: "Today, in the course of the regular inspection of its premises, UNRWA discovered rockets hidden in a vacant school in the Gaza Strip.

On July 30, 2014 The Times of Israel reported that "...a stockpile of Hamas rockets was found in one of UNRWA's Gaza schools - for the third time since the onset of Operation Protective Edge...The incident...was not publicized by UNRWA on its website or official Twitter feed, or that of its spokesperson."

Albeit UNRWA feigns surprise, over the years various Hamas-UNRWA connections have been exposed in multiple contexts.

Human rights groups report that some were executed after being caught 'red handed' while marking targets for the Israeli Air Force. All the alleged collaborates were summarily executed without trial.

A separate report by several new sources describes protesters in Beit Hanun who were shot in the street by Hamas on Sunday for demonstrating against Hamas' leadership and the destruction caused to the Gaza Strip. They blamed Hamas for the calamity which has befallen the civilians of the Gaza Strip. Some 20 protesters were rounded up and shot in front of a crowd."

Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

On July 30, 2014 U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl issued a statement alleging that Israelis are baby-killlers: "Last night, children were killed as they slept next to their parents on the floor of a classroom in a UN designated shelter in Gaza. Children killed in their sleep..." On July 14 Krähenbühl also told the press that Israeli crimes included "attacks against...civilians."

"...we must be careful about the endless enumeration of casualty numbers. The dead and injured in Gaza are not anonymous. Behind the figures lie multiple individual destinies now torn apart. Too often in their lives have Gazan civilians been denied their dignity. Anonymity in death or injury is the ultimate denial. It is also too comfortable for the world and the parties engaged in the hostilities. Palestinians are not statistics and we must never allow them to be treated as such. They are human beings like others in the world, with their identity and the same hopes and expectations for an improved future for their children. In this context, I urgently call on the Israeli Security Forces to put an end to attacks against, or endangering, civilians and civilian infrastructure which are contrary to international humanitarian law."

"A government spokesman says Boko Haram fighters kidnapped the wife of Cameroon's vice prime minister in an attack that also resulted in multiple deaths. Communications Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary said the attack occurred early Sunday morning in the town of Kolofata, in the Far North Region. He said the fighters targeted the home of Vice Prime Minister Amadou Ali as well as a local traditional chief. He could not provide the exact numbers of people killed and kidnapped because he was still gathering information about the attack. But he confirmed that Ali's wife was among those kidnapped. Cameroon's government has become increasingly involved in regional efforts to combat Boko Haram, despite warnings from the armed group to stay out of its fight with the Nigerian military or risk further attacks."

1. Below are the findings of a preliminary, partial list of Palestinians killed in Operation Protective Edge.[1] The goal is to ascertain the identity of terrorist operatives and non-involved citizens, and to examine the ratio between them.

2. We have examined the first 150 names of Palestinians killed between July 7 and July 12, 2014, which appeared on the list of those killed issued by the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza (see Appendix C). To this list the ITIC added the names of six terrorist operatives who were killed on those dates but were not included on the Health Ministry's list, or who were killed and whose names were added later. Conversely, we removed the names of three dead, whose identity is still unknown, and the name of a terrorist operative who, it turned out, was wounded and whose name appeared on the mortality list by mistake.

3. Out of the names of 152 individuals who were killed, that were examined by the ITIC, 71 were identified as terror operatives and 81 as non-involved civilians. The percentage of terrorist operatives among all those examined is 46.7%, while the percentage of non-involved citizens is 53.3%. This ratio may vary as the ITIC continues to examine the names of those killed in Operation Protective Edge.